Due to the escalating cost of petroleum products, it has been the recent practice in asphalt paving operations to reclaim the existing asphalt pavement. Under current practice, the existing pavement is cold milled by a huge planer machine that rips and grind the pavement into fragments about 1 inch or less in size. New aggregrate, which has not been coated with asphalt, is heated to temperatures of 800.degree. F. to 1200.degree. F. in a batch plant. This aggregrate is them mixed with reclaimed paving material, additional asphalt and other additives required. In so doing, the overheated new aggregate transfers heat to the reclaimed paving material and other additives. Since the asphalt is not brought into direct contact with the flame, decomposition of the asphalt and production of gaseous pollutants is somewhat reduced. The modified paving material at a temperature of 270.degree. F. to 300.degree. F., is then hauled back to the roadway and relaid. The cold removal of the existing pavement is particularly hard on the planer machine, resulting in high maintenance cost and repairs. Furthermore, the hauling of the removed pavement to the batch plant and returning the new mix to the roadway results in a substantial transportation cost. As a further disadvantage, the flame heating process, which is utilized in the batch plant, requires that the new aggregate be heated to a temperature of 800.degree. F. to 1200.degree. F. in order to adequately heat and melt the interior portions of the pavement chunks. The heat transfer at these elevated temperatures can result in decomposition of the bituminous material and the resulting emission of pollutant gases.
A second method, as practiced in the past, for reclaiming asphalt pavement has been the open flame heating of the existing pavement to soften the layer prior to removal. With this method, it is necessary to heat the outer layer of the pavement to an extremely high temperature in order to sofen the inner layers, again resulting in decomposition of the bituminous material and the production of polluting gaseous products.